Nature Girl

Filmmaking duo Trent Maynard and Candace Campo, ancestral name xets’emits’a (to always be there), spend five years documenting the surprising species living in a wetland in the shíshálh Nation swiya (also known today as the Sunshine Coast, BC, Canada).

Nature Girl is an intimate introduction to our non-human fellow citizens, the plant and animal beings of the land.

Using poetry and motion sensor cameras, the film documents intergenerational black bear families scratching at a scratch post, and bathing in a small watering hole, alongside elk, newts, frogs, owls and bats.

After a public engagement screening for local Sunshine Coast audiences at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery in spring 2024, and after submitting a few rough cuts to festivals, we have moved our film into a final cut in 2025, which we are offering for reconsideration. Preview links available by request.

Our first public screening is confirmed at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver on April 24th at 6:30pm, on the unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam) Nations.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.